Years ago, around the time that many of my male friends were getting married, I noticed something. A few months after the ceremony — after the wedding pictures were framed and displayed, after the tropical honeymoon was a happy memory — my friends started getting fat.

And noticeably so. Their shirts would be stretched taut against their bellies, little darts of flesh visible as the shirt fronts pooched out. Their belts started migrating south, the fronts tucked below the stomach and the backs still high on the hips. Their faces were flusher and thicker, and when they tapped out messages on their phones — usually texts to their new brides, something like “be home soon bby can i bring u sumthing” while finishing one last beer with their old friends — it was mostly typos created by their newly pudgy fingers.